


"Timmy, Got Your Number and I Gotcha For the Summer"

by redrobinfection (ChristmasRivers)



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Camping, Coffee, Delirium, Developing Relationship, Established Relationship, Fever, Fluff, Food Trucks, Ice Cream, Illnesses, M/M, Picnics, Reading Aloud, S'mores, Sick Character, Sickfic, Silly, Sleeping Together, Stargazing, Sunburn, Sunsets, Tim's obsession with marshmallows (thank you marcus to), Watermelons, jaytim christmas in july, summer job, talking things out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-19
Updated: 2018-08-31
Packaged: 2019-06-29 18:41:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 10,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15735180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChristmasRivers/pseuds/redrobinfection
Summary: "...it's a bummer that things go so fast..."A collection of short JayTim drabbles originally posted on my tumblr for the JayTim Christmas in July event hosted by@jaytimsecretsanta.NEW"Summer Job" --> Jason is living out his childhood dream of owning a chili dog stand, er, well, in this case, a chili dogtruck, and Tim has taken a sabbatical from WE for the summer to help out.





	1. (3) Ice Cream

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from Walk the Moon's [Jenny](https://youtu.be/910fPF-Qc7E).
> 
> Day 3 "Ice Cream"

 "Ugh. This is stupid. Let’s go get ice cream instead.“

Red Robin looked away from the hidden entrance they were watching - had been watching without a break for hours now in a stakeout aimed at sussing out a hard to find suspect - and shook his head minutely at Red Hood.

"She could come out any minut-”

“If she were in there she would have come out by now,” Hood countered huffily.

“-now and we’ve been waiting here for nearly four hours. You really want all that time spent to have been a waste?”

Hood sighed and Tim could imagine the way his eyes probably rolled. “This is already a waste of time. She could walk out this very second and I would still regret wasting my time here. But she’s not in there so let’s go get ice crea-.”

“Shhhh- wait, wait, wait! The door is opening,” Tim shushed him, going back into Red Robin mode. Beside him Hood moaned. Their mark left the building, spoke briefly with an associate then straddled a crazy-looking bike that he snapped several pictures of with the camera in his cowl - no plates, but a customization like that probably turned heads and would stick in people’s memories.

“Great. Are we tailing her now?” Hood asked dully, scooting back from the edge of the roof and standing up to stretch.

“No, this was enough. From here we’ll-”

“Great, then let’s go get ice cream!”

Red Robin stared. “I..that’s… Okay, well, first of all, it’s the middle of the night, so where are we supposed to get this ice cream you’re so desperate to have?”

“I know a place that stays open until three,” Hood replied without hesitation, shooting double finger guns his way. Tim rolled his eyes and checked the time in his HUD.

“It’s 2:47.”

“Oh damn,” Hood cursed, whirling on the spot and looking out into the city. “Well it’s about four blocks to the north of here so… race you!”

Tim blinked, then started as Hood shot swinging off into the night. “Wait! I don’t even know where it is!”

“Then you better keep close!”

_Ten minutes later…_

“Oh man. Only just made it,” Jason sighed, plopping down on the edge of the building they’d scaled after coming out of the ice cream shop. “Pop a squat, Timbo, and savor this with me.”

Tim rolled his eyes, but sat down beside him and pulled down the cowl. Jason popped off his hood; he wasn’t wearing a domino that night, to Tim’s surprise. He blinked a few times to adjust his eyes then squinted down at Tim and winked. “How’s your coffee cone?”

Tim licked a broad stripe off the top and hummed approvingly. Jason grinned and mirrored the motion, then leaned down and kissed him abruptly. He startled, then leaned into it, chasing the chocolate flavor of Jason’s double fudge cone across his tongue.

“Mmmmm,” Jason hummed, pulling back with a grin. “Mocha. I’ve always thought that we go together as well as coffee and chocolate.”

Tim groaned and punched him lightly with his freehand. “Ugh, you got chocolate just so you could say that, didn’t you?”

Jason chuckled. “I’ve been planning it since the beginning. Thought of it while we were going out of our minds with boredom on the stakeout.”

Tim groaned louder and shook his head. “Get over here and kiss me again before I push you off this roof.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My DCU tumblr is [redrobinfection](http://redrobinfection.tumblr.com/). Like and reblog this work on tumblr [here](http://redrobinfection.tumblr.com/post/175523283835/3-ice-cream). Thanks for reading!  
> 


	2. (5) Watermelon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"...it's a bummer that things go so fast..."_  
>  Title from Walk the Moon's [Jenny](https://youtu.be/910fPF-Qc7E).
> 
> Day 5 "Watermelon"

“Ugh. I hate watermelon,” Tim grumbled, dropping the wedge he’d been picking at halfheartedly for the last five minutes. Jason stared.

“Whaddya mean you hate watermelon? Who can hate watermelon?!?” he asked incredulously, shooting Tim a scandalized look and snatching the wedge away. Tim let him. He leaned one elbow onto the pinic table, propped his drooping head up with his hand, and looked out over the Wayne Enterprises company picnic with bored, glassy eyes.

“It’s just so grainy, mushy, messy… and the taste is just so… bleh, bland and watery.”

“Did you just complain about watermelon being _‘watery’_ ,” Jason asked slowly, shaking his head. “Are we even eating the same thing? This watermelon is fantastic.”

“This one’s okay. Not as mushy. Not grainy. But I’m not in the mood,” Tim mumbled morosely.

Jason squinted and leaned in, laying a hand on Tim’s forehead. Flushed cheeks, pronounced torpor, and clammy skin. “Are you sure it’s not just the heat getting to you, makin’ you say weird stuff?” Jason asked half-teasingly.

Instead of brushing his hand off with a snappy comeback Tim merely glanced over and blinked at him miserably.

“Okaaay, I’m going to take that as a yes,” Jason added, teasing now tinged with concern. He stood and threw out their paper plates, then returned to collect Tim, literally pulling him up from the bench. He slowly escorted his languid noodle boyfriend toward the cars, nearly carrying him most of the way.

“Let’s get you some water, cool you off, and then we’ll talk about why watermelon is the best of all melons,” Jason told him as he settled Tim into the passenger side seat of his car.

“I don’t like any melons,” Tim mumbled back, letting his eyes slip closed as his head fell back limply against the headrest.

“Whaaaat?! Who can hate melons?!?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My DCU tumblr is [redrobinfection](http://redrobinfection.tumblr.com/). Like and reblog this work on tumblr [here](http://redrobinfection.tumblr.com/post/175590269177/5-watermelon). Thanks for reading!  
> 


	3. (6) Food Truck

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _"...it's a bummer that things go so fast..."_  
>  Title from Walk the Moon's [Jenny](https://youtu.be/910fPF-Qc7E).
> 
> Day 6 "Food Truck"

“Y'know, you really should try getting a day job, have a civilian ID - even if it’s fake - and have a life outside of the nightlife,” Red Robin commented idly.

Jason turned his eyes away from building they were staking out and fixed Red with a glare that had to be obvious even beneath the hood. “Yeah, how’s that going for you, Mr. Barely-Sleeps-Barely-Eats-Barely-Breathes. What am I supposed to do anyway? I don’t have a degree - hell, I don’t even have a GED - who would hire me?”

“Hey, not true,” Red rebutted. His lips twitched at the corners. “I breathe quite frequently, thank you. And I dunno, do something you’re passionate about. Yeah, you don’t have a degree, but you have plenty of capital - just start a small business or something.”

“Start a business? I’m not a businessman! That’s the stupidest-” Jason began, cutting off abruptly as the topic dredged up a thought he’d had once, a looooong time ago. (Like. Back when he wore the short shorts long time ago).

“You could definitely manage a small business. It’s just a lot of management and people skills. I mean, what do you call being a drug lor-”

“Food Truck.”

Red tilted his head in confusion. “Excuse me?”

“A food truck,” Jason reiterated, feeling a ridiculous amount of excitement building up for an idea which had so little chance in reality. “I could start a food truck.”

Red pursed his lips. “Okay and sell…”

“Chili dogs!”

“Chili dogs?”

“Yeah, and chili fries and all sorts of dogs and picnic sides like ‘slaw and… I dunno, lots of stuff. But chili dogs!”

“Uh. Okay. That’s not what I was picturing when I said small business - I was thinking more along the lines of tea and coffee shop or bookstore or something - but yeah, why not,” Red conceded.

“You really think I should do it? Could do it?” Jason asked earnestly.

“Yeah, why not. I mean you’d have to figure out a way to run it often enough to cover costs, maybe hire a few people to help, but you could definitely handle it.”

“Hmmm. Well as far as hiring people… I mean you run the Neon Knights program; you think any of those kids might be interested in a legitimate job? Might as well work in a little community outreach while I’m at it…”

Red tilted his head and hummed. “That's… not a bad idea. I dunno if I’d trust a lot of them to run the truck while you’re not around, but maybe with time and training and…” he trailed off, muttering under his breath.

Jason huffed a laugh and turned back to watching the building. “Whatchu schemin’ over there, T?”

He jumped a little as Red leaned forward into his line of sight, grinning widely. “How would you like to enter into a joint venture, J?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Continued in Day 30 "Summer Job" >>](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15735180/chapters/36938598)
> 
> My DCU tumblr is [redrobinfection](http://redrobinfection.tumblr.com/). Like and reblog this work on tumblr [here](http://redrobinfection.tumblr.com/post/175623741608/6-food-truck). Thanks for reading!  
> 


	4. (8) Ice Coffee

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _"...it's a bummer that things go so fast..."_  
>  Title from Walk the Moon's [Jenny](https://youtu.be/910fPF-Qc7E).
> 
> Day 8 "Ice Coffee"

_Now!_ Tim was caught up in what he was saying to Dick, so Jason leaned over as slowly and quietly as he could and sipped as noisily as humanly possible from Tim’s iced coffee.

“What the hell! Get away from my coffee!” Tim shrieked theatrically, slapping him lightly and repeatedly across the shoulder, face, and the top of his head. “You have your own drink! Drink it!”

“I will,” Jason replied smoothly, unruffled and unconcerned. “But I needed a break away from my tea for a sec and I wanted to try one of those secondhand kisses they go on and on about all in anime all the time.”

“Then go buy yourself your own-” Tim began, then cut off and stared. His face lit up like a stoplight. Jason took a sip of his passion fruit iced tea and waited. Dick sighed and shook his head.

“Wait! Since when do you watch anime?!”

Jason snorted and leaned in to kiss Tim on the forehead, drawn in by how cute he gets when riled up. Dick chuckled.

“So, was it as good as they always say?” Dick asked lightly, his eyes twinkling mischievously and leaning forward in interest.

“Coffee-licious,” Jason responded blithely, fighting down a grin as Tim glared up at him, “but I still prefer the firsthand ones.”

Tim opened his mouth to respond, then froze and whirled to face Dick. The oldest man laughed as Tim pointed a finger across the table, nearly knocking over his coffee.

“Since when do _**you**_ watch anime!?!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My DCU tumblr is [redrobinfection](http://redrobinfection.tumblr.com/). Like and reblog this work on tumblr [here](http://redrobinfection.tumblr.com/post/175691572374/8-ice-coffee). Thanks for reading!  
> 


	5. (11) Stargazing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _"...it's a bummer that things go so fast..."_  
>  Title from Walk the Moon's [Jenny](https://youtu.be/910fPF-Qc7E).
> 
> Day 11 "Stargazing"
> 
> This fill is a sequel to my #JayTimWeek2017 Day 2 fill [“Sex or Sunscreen”](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11612652) but it can also be read independently.

“It’s so weird being able to see the stars,” Jason mused. Lying next to him in the sand, Tim nodded. “I dunno if I like it. Too weird. Almost makes me miss Gotham,” he added, snorting at the thought of anyone preferring Gotham over a secluded tropical beach.

“I like it. I always imagined looking at them out here they’d be brighter, though,” Tim admitted, a touch of wistfully, his gaze dimming as if to match the stars.

“That’s cause we’re down at sea level, isn’t? If we were up at some conservatory with thinner air and less humidity it’d be a little better right?”

Tim turned to him and nodded thoughtfully. “You’re probably right.” He smiled and Jason smiled back, pleased to have put the light back into Tim’s eyes. Those eyes turned to look back at the stars.

“We can still see the Milky Way, at least,” Tim pointed out. “Or at least one arm of it, we’re _in_ the Milky Way, so of course we can’t see all of-”

“Wait, where?”

Tim lifted an arm, sputtering briefly as sand fell into his eyes and mouth, then sat up and traced a hand across the sky. “See that band across the sky that almost looks like haze or a cloud covering the stars? If you stare at it long enough, you can see that it’s actually lots and lots of stars grouped together.”

“Oh wow…” Jason breathed, finally seeing it for the first time. “So that thing is the Milky Way? I’ve been staring at it this whole time!”

“Yup.”

“Damn, I actually thought it was a cloud!” Jason admitted, laughing.

“So did I the first time.”

“So where’s the Big Dipper? Or the Little Dipper?” Jason asked, feeling a little like the little kid his life had never really allowed him to be as he looked up at the stars and felt nothing but wonder.

“Well, they’re practically next to each other, or, at least, you use one to find the other, and they’re connected to the north star, so they’d be about…” Tim trailed off and shrugged. “I’ve only ever found them a handful of times, and that was in a planetarium. I doubt I’m going to find them tonight.”

Jason patted his leg and sat up, shrugging off sand and dusting it out of his hair. “If B were here he’d probably know where everything is, know all the constellations, and try to give us a crash course in navigating by the stars to boot.”

Tim laughed and shook his head. “Then it’s a good thing B isn’t here,” he said, scrubbing a hand through his own hair to shake loose the sand. “I can think of plenty of other things I’d rather do under the starlight,” he concluded, smirking at Jason suggestively.

“Oh, really?” Jason asked, feeling a grin tug at his lips as he reached out a hand and combed his fingers through Tim’s hair, raking his nails lightly against his scalp as he freed stubborn grains of sand from salt-softened strands. Tim moaned and leaned into it.

“Oh man, that feels amazing. I hate sand so much…”

Jason paused and scooted closer until they were hip to hip and shoulder to shoulder. He wrapped his arm around Tim’s shoulders and reached up to the hair on the side he hadn’t touched. Tim leaned into him and sighed. 

He snorted, ruffling Tim’s hair. “If you hate sand so much, why are we laying on a beach staring up at the sky? Or better yet, why did we go body surfing earlier? I swear I’m going to be scraping sand out of the deepest reaches of my ass for wee-”

Tim burst out laughing and turned to look up at him, cheeks full of color and eyes bright. _Ah. There are the bright stars we were missing,_ Jason thought, figuratively shaking his head at his own sappiness.

“Well, we already tried sex on the beach, day edition, and got terribly burned for our troubles, but we’re still on our honeymoon, dammit, so why not double the foolishness by trying the ‘after dark’ edition?” Tim joked, waggling his eyebrows.

Jason rolled his eyes. “You should have told me. We should have brought blankets.”

Tim nodded mock-seriously. “Yes, dear, we should have, but can you blame me for suddenly feeling romantic when the stars started coming out? For wanting to do something spontaneous and free-spirited for once?”

“Tim Drake not planning something for once in his life?” Jason gasped dramatically, “Who are you and what have you done with my husband?!” He smiled and leaned down as Tim beamed and tipped his head back.

They met in a slow, warm kiss that lingered and stretched until Jason lost count of the waves that had crashed at their feet since it had begun. They really weren’t in any hurry to speed things up; they had all night and the beach, the island practically, all to themselves. Eventually, Tim pulled away and panted lightly against his lips.

“'My husband’, huh? I have to say, I really love the sound of that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My DCU tumblr is [redrobinfection](http://redrobinfection.tumblr.com/). Like and reblog this work on tumblr [here](http://redrobinfection.tumblr.com/post/175798208601/11-stargazing). Thanks for reading!  
> 


	6. (13) Camping

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _"...it's a bummer that things go so fast..."_  
>  Title from Walk the Moon's [Jenny](https://youtu.be/910fPF-Qc7E).
> 
> Day 13 "Camping"

“Hey, uh, Tim?”

He looked up and tossed away another wayward tent pole, quietly cursing the whole tent assembly process. “Yeah? What’s up?”

Jason sighed and rifled through their gear one last time before turning. “So, good news and bad news. Good news is that I found the fire starters, so, yay, light, heat, and protection from curious predators.”

"So what’s the bad news?”

Jason winced and waggled his hands. “We _may_ have forgotten one of the sleeping bags down at the car.”

“So we’ll just hike down and-”

“Not at night we won’t,” Jason cut in forcefully, looking at him as if he’d lost his mind. “That’s a five mile hike. In the dark.”

“We’re vigilantes, Jay, I think we can handle a little workout at nigh-”

“ _With mountain lions_.”

“Okay, fine,” Tim conceded. “I guess we’ll make due with what we have. We could probably squeeze us both into one. It’ll be warmer that way anyway.”

Jason pulled the tightly rolled space-saver sleeping bag out of the bottom of his pack and unfurled it. "Yeah… it’s gonna be a tight fit, though.”

“I’m sure we’ll manage.”

“I uhhh… didn’t bring any pyjamas. And I usually sleep in the nude.”

Tim pinned him with a flat stare. “Jason. We’re dating. _We’ve had sex_. I’ve seen you naked plenty of times and slept with you nude or semi-nude more times that not.”

“It’s different out here, in the wild, and in such close quarters!” he argued, eyes widening dramatically.

Tim sighed and shook his head. “What? Because we might spontaneously start something in the middle of the night and attract the mountain lions with the raucous sounds of our mating?”

Jason choked over his own spit and blushed furiously. “Yes… maybe. Something like that…” He descended into grumbling as he went back to digging things out of their packs. “…just you wait… wake up… poking you… worst morning wood…”

Tim rolled his eyes and went back to wrestling with the tent. “Jay, I get morning wood, too. It’s fine. If it isn’t then we’ll figure it out. That’s why we came out here, right? To bond and figure stuff out. Right?”

Jason nodded. “Yeah. Okay.” He sent Tim a sheepish grin that Tim returned with a fond smile.

“Please tell me we at least remembered the marshmallows.”

Jason chuckled and dug down into the triple-sealed, air-tight baggies of food in Tim’s pack. "Yeah, looks like we- Wait. Why are there _two_ huge bags of jumbo-puff marshmallows in your pack?”

“One is for s'mores, the other is for me,” he replied in stride.

“Tim, man, you’ve got a problem,” Jason replied, shaking his head at the overabundance of puffed sugar.

“That’s what you said about coffee.”

“Yeah and not long after I said that you almost gave yourself caffeine poisoning,” Jason reminded him drily.

“I work out. Swing around buildings ‘n stuff. A little sugar here and there won’t give me diabetes. It’ll be fine,” Tim replied lightly, hiding his grin. Yeah, he had an obsession with marshmallows, but he rarely indulged it, so no big deal. “Did you remember the chocolate and graham crackers?”

“Sure did. You remember the roasting skewers?”

“Absolutely.”

Jason grinned. “Okay, well, why don’t we get this fire started and break out some dinner foods before we move on to the main event?”

Tim chuckled lowly. “S’mores are the main event? I thought attracting the wild animals with the fury of our love-maki-”

“We are not having wild, crazy tent sex tonight!” Jason all but screeched, throwing a piece of kindling at his leg. 

“Oh yeah, that’s right, we agreed on no sex tonight; just talking, bonding, and now, apparently, cuddling naked in the same sleeping bag. S’mores and blue balls: best night ever!”

“You’re lucky I love and appreciate your sense of humor and overabundance of sass, Timothy Drake, otherwise you’d be sleeping in the dirt tonight,” Jason informed him in a sour tone that was at odds with the smile on his face.

“Love you too, Jay,” Tim shot back with a shit-eating grin. His expression softened as he climbed up onto hands and knees and crawled over to Jason, planting an affectionate kiss on his cheek before Jason pulled back and reared up to catch his lips.

“Okay, enough of that, let’s get this fire going before it gets dark,” Jason declared as he pulled away. “S’mores now; we’ll deal with any blue balls in the morning.”

Tim raised his eyebrows. “Oh really?” 

Jason returned the shit-eating grin with a heated one of his own. “Well, we only agreed to keep tonight PG. Come tomorrow, fully expect to serenade all the wild animals with your screams.”

“Or yours.”

“We’ll both give them a recital and a show they’ll never forget.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be continued...
> 
> My DCU tumblr is [redrobinfection](http://redrobinfection.tumblr.com/). Like and reblog this work on tumblr [here](http://redrobinfection.tumblr.com/post/175863853739/13-camping). Thanks for reading!  
> 


	7. (14) Sunburn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _"...it's a bummer that things go so fast..."_  
>  Title from Walk the Moon's [Jenny](https://youtu.be/910fPF-Qc7E).
> 
> Day 14 "Sunburn"

“You look cute with red cheeks.”

Jason frowned. “Did you just tell me my sunburn looks cute?”

Tim laughed. “No, just that you look cute rosy-cheeked, like the vision of some metaphorical blushing bride,” he explained, laughing harder as Jason leveled him with a flat, hard stare.

“There’s definitely nothing cute about how this feels,” he grumbled darkly, turning away.

“No! Come back! I’ll help you put on some aloe.”

“No, I’m a blushing bride; you can’t touch me, I might explode from blushing too hard.”

Tim was practically sobbing. “Jason, come baaaaack.”

“I can put on my own damn aloe.”

“But what about your back?”

“…”

He stopped, turned and pursed his lips in thought. “Fine, you can do my back when I finish with my face,” he allowed grudgingly.

Tim couldn’t help himself. “You, uh, look especially cute when you pout like that.”

“Fuck you!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My DCU tumblr is [redrobinfection](http://redrobinfection.tumblr.com/). Like and reblog this work on tumblr [here](http://redrobinfection.tumblr.com/post/175890819298/14-sunburn). Thanks for reading!  
> 


	8. (15) Sunset

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _"...it's a bummer that things go so fast..."_  
>  Title from Walk the Moon's [Jenny](https://youtu.be/910fPF-Qc7E).
> 
> Day 15 "Sunset"

“Okay, Red, let’s head in,” Jason wheezed from under his hood. He pressed a hand against the light armor covering his ribs and winced a little. It had been a rough night.

“Noooooo, not yet. Let’s watch the sunset first!”

“Uhhhh, Red, we’ve been out all night; that’s sunrise.”

Red scoffed and peeled off his cowl, shaking out his sweat-soaked cowl hair and exposing his flushed cheeks. His eyes had that wild “I’ve been awake and hopped-up on caffeine for waaaaay too long now” look about them. “Practically the same thing,” he replied, waving a hand.

Jason shook his head. “Red. You’re delirious. Go home.”

“Noooooooo, pretty sunset-sunrise-sunwhatever first!”

“Well, I’m going home,” Jason replied dismissively, turning around. Turning his back on Tim probably wasn’t the wisest decision because not a half a second later, Tim hurtled in to the back of him and wrapped his arms around his waist and hugged him tight, throwing off their balance for a moment and nearly sending them both toppling.

“Noooooooooo, stay and watch the sunset with me,” he whined.

“Sunrise.”

“Yeah, sure.”

Jason sighed, the reached around to the back of his hood and released it. “Okay. Fine. But as soon as the sun is over the horizon I’m dragging you back to the apartment and you are sleeping a solid eight before you do anything else.”

“Deal!”

Jason pulled out his domino and made sure it was in place before settling down on the edge of the roof next to Tim. He reached over into the smaller man’s belt and pulled out Red Robin’s spare domino. Tim yelped and wriggled at the intrusion of personal space until Jason shoved the mask into his hands, at which point Tim giggled and kicked his feet against the side of the building while he affixed it to his face.

Jason rubbed his forehead and sighed. “Jeez, man, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this bad. You might as well be drunk.”

Tim giggled. “Yup,” he replied, popping the ‘p’. “I’m more drunk when I’m reaaaaaally tired than I am when I drink!”

“Good to know,” Jason replied drily. “You’re lucky you didn’t miss a grapple or fall off a roof in this state. Swinging around the city 'drunk’ is exactly how you’ll end up street pizza.”

“Oooooo, we should get pizza after this!” Tim exclaimed, eyes lighting up.

“As soon as the pizzerias open, sure. Now pay attention to the sunrise; that’s why we’re here, isn’t it?”

They fell silent, watching the sun as it slowly slid over the horizon. To be fair, it was a gorgeous sunrise, the ever-present haze and streaks of clouds in Gotham’s skies diffusing the sun’s rays into brilliant reds and purples that blended into oranges and yellows as the sun ascended. Just before the sun crested the buildings on the horizon, Tim hummed. Jason glanced over at him curiously.

“I was joking, but really, there’s not much difference between a sunrise and a sunset,” he commented in a more subdued tone, his true exhaustion beginning to show as he came down from his previous high of delirium. At this rate, if they waited much longer, Jason would probably end up carrying his comatose body the entire way home.

“They are nothing alike. One happens in the east, the other in the west. One is going up the other down. One is a fresh new start, the other marks the end of the day. So on and so forth,” Jason rebutted.

Tim shook his head sluggishly. “Nah, but, think about it. They look the same. If you didn’t know what time it was or if you were jet-lagged or something and didn’t see which way the sun was going, you could easily mistake them. And for us, since this is technically the end of our 'day’ and, I dunno about you, but I’m usually napping through actual sunset, sunrises are more like sunsets for us than sunsets are.”

Jason pursed his lips and frowned. “I guess…” He glanced out over the roofs then turned to Tim. “Okay, the sun is over the buildings; time to go.”

“Oooooookaaaay,” Tim moaned, rolling onto his side then rolling out onto the rooftop like a log. Jason snorted and followed, offering a hand to pull him up that Tim accepted gratefully.

“Well, however you want to look at it, that was a very nice sunrise-sunset,” Jason remarked quietly as they slowly made their way to the west side of the roof.

Tim beamed up at him tiredly. “Thanks for watching it with me, Jay.”

He ruffled Tim’s hair and grinned. “No problem, Babybird.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My DCU tumblr is [redrobinfection](http://redrobinfection.tumblr.com/). Like and reblog this work on tumblr [here](http://redrobinfection.tumblr.com/post/175918578904/15-sunset). Thanks for reading!  
> 


	9. (17) S'mores

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _"...it's a bummer that things go so fast..."_  
>  Title from Walk the Moon's [Jenny](https://youtu.be/910fPF-Qc7E).
> 
> Day 17 "S'mores"
> 
> [ << Continued from Day 13 "Camping"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15735180/chapters/36686100)

Jason looked up. “Uhhh… Tim? Tim? TIM.”

“Yeah, what?”

“Your marshmallow is on fire.”

“Oh shit.” Tim snapped to attention and pulled his skewer off the campfire. He chuckled apologetically and waggled the mostly charred puff. “You have the crackers ready?”

“Here,” Jason replied, presenting a graham cracker stacked with a layer of chocolate bar in one hand while he held another cracker ready in the other.

“Okay, I’m going to lay marshmallow on the chocolate, you bring down the top cracker and squeeze, and I’ll remove the skewer.”

"Got it.”

A quick sandwiching, a careful slide and then they beamed as they celebrated their first ever authentic, ‘made on a campfire’ s'more. “Okay, one down, one to go…” Tim trailed off absently, reaching into the marshmallow bag. He pulled out three jumbo puffs, quickly shoving two into his mouth and the third onto the metal skewer. Jason shook his head.

“Hey. Stop skimming marshmallows, will ya? And pay attention this time. I’m starting to think you’re burning them just to have an excuse to eat them all.”

Tim shot him a guilty glance and a shit-eating grin. “Of course not, I would never…”

“Pay attention. The next one is mine and I want a kick ass s’more, so…”

Tim turned and saluted cheekily, the skewered marshmallow in his hand dipping dangerously close to the flames. “Aye, aye, Captain.”

“Just pay attention already!”

Tim could be a playful little shit sometimes, but Jason’s marshmallow came out _perfectly_ \- evenly browned on all sides, just the right side of crispy without being burnt, and nice and gooey on the inside. Just the way he liked it. The resulting s'more came together beautifully, after which they turned to each other, each held up a s'more, and lightly tapped them together.

“To us,” Tim toasted.

“To us. And to many more animal-attack-free camping trips to come,” Jason replied with a grin. They dug into their s'mores with gusto, battling in vain to keep the gooey contents therein from shooting out as they bit down. Jason tried his best to eat with slow, careful bites, but Tim inhaled his with wild abandon. Jason smirked at the utter mess he had made of his face in the process.

“You, ah, you’ve got something, right about… there,” Jason told him, circling the entire area around Tim’s lips teasingly. Tim waggled his eyebrows with a grin and licked his lips “seductively” - flicking his pink, pink tongue in languid, exaggerated swipes over his reddened lips and poking the tip enticingly into the corners of his mouth - but ridiculous as it looked or not, Jason couldn’t stand the tease. He leaned in, swiping his own tongue over Tim’s lips briefly before sucking insistently on each. Tim tilted his face up eagerly to his attentions. Jason pulled off and pecked at the corners of his mouth, then licked and nipped at a few places on his cheeks before sitting back and smiling fondly. Tim beamed up at him with with a warm, satisfied smile.

“You did that on purpose, didn’t you?” Jason asked narrowing his eyes dramatically.

“Maaaaaaybe.”

Jason slapped his shoulder lightly. “Hey. I thought we went over this: none of that sexy stuff; this is a PG-rated, all fluffy fun bonding trip. No seducing me into sexual activities with your well-affected sloppy cuteness,” he teased.

“Kissing is hardly sex.”

“It is if we start tongue-fucking each other!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Continued in Day 29 "Date Night"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15735180/chapters/36910239) >>
> 
> My DCU tumblr is [redrobinfection](http://redrobinfection.tumblr.com/). Like and reblog this work on tumblr [here](http://redrobinfection.tumblr.com/post/176006292096/17-smores). Thanks for reading!  
> 


	10. (18) Sleeping In

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _"...it's a bummer that things go so fast..."_  
>  Title from Walk the Moon's [Jenny](https://youtu.be/910fPF-Qc7E).
> 
> Day 18 "Sleeping In"
> 
> This fill is a tiny bit of sequel to the last scene in my ["Mi cama es su cama"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14078142) fic, but it can also be read independently. Enjoy!

Jason sighed and let himself drift in the muzzy warmth all around him. Full consciousness loomed, but he wasn’t in any hurry to jump out of bed. As he gradually woke, little by little, he registered new sensations: The mattress perfectly molded around his shoulders, back, and hips. The blankets and comforters tangled around their feet. The deliciously warm body in his arms. His nose buried in bunny-soft locks of hair. The blended scents of shampoo and skin and the two of them. The rhythmic sounds of breathing…

Jason fixated on the sound and sank back into a trance-like doze for a few long, blissful minutes before it registered that the warm was maybe a bit _too_ warm and the breaths were just a little too loud in his ears. No, not too loud, too _pronounced_ , he realized.

And just like that, it was suffocatingly hot in the blankets, the mattress was swallowing them whole, and Jason was suddenly wide awake. He sat up, gently pulling his arms from around the body - from around Tim - and blinked groggily into the dim space. They’d gradually slipped down their pillow ramp during the night, leaving Tim lying nearly horizontal in the disintegrating pile, his slow breaths wheezing and rattling so painfully that Jason wondered how they hadn’t woken either of them sooner. 

Tim’s cheeks were flushed red and hot, but there was no sheen of sweat on his face and that worried Jason. He gently laid the back of his hand across Tim’s forehead and frowned. He hopped out of bed, crossed the room to their bathroom, and dug around in a drawer until he found the thermometer, the easy kind you only have to lay against someone’s forehead. He took Tim’s temperature and winced.

“Shit…” Jason shook his head sadly as he studied the ailing man. There was no denying it now: the inevitable fever had arrived. They were out of time; it was time to bite the bullet and go see Leslie.

Jason dressed quickly, pulling together his things and some of Tim’s and tossing them into a duffel, just in case they didn’t make it back the apartment later - with Tim’s health it was always better to assume the worse and go from there - then quietly approached Tim’s side of the bed.

“Hey. Timbo. It’s time to get up,” Jason called softly.

“Mmmmmrgphfh,” Tim moaned, eyes fluttering.

“Come on, Babybird, we gotta get up. Gotta get you to Leslie.”

Tim groaned and blinked, once, twice, three times before his eyes stayed open. “Wha?”

Jason reached out and cupped his cheek with the palm of his hand. “We gotta get up and go see Leslie, little bird.”

Tim tilted his head slightly into Jason’s cool hand and frowned slightly. He looked dazed. “Now?”

“Yeah, now. You’ve got a fever, and you sound awful,” Jason explained patiently.

Tim groaned and wriggled weakly. “You soun'…awful…” His eyes started to drift closed again.

Jason snorted softly and shook his shoulder gently. “No, up. Time to get up, Red Robin.”

Tim groaned louder and slapped at him with noodley arms, but opened his eyes. “Fine. Just gimme… gimme… five minutes…”

Jason sighed and stood, pulling out his phone. “I’m going to call Leslie’s. If she’s available, then we’ll go there.” He pulled open the blinds to let in the weak morning light. It was barely past six, but Tim still whined pitifully and flopped an arm over his eyes. “If it’s too early or she’s busy, then we’re going straight to Alfred.”

“Noooooooooooo,” Tim wailed, turning away onto his side and curling around one of the pillows. He coughed several wet, hacking coughs that trailed off into quick, labored breaths.

Jason paused in dialing and sat down beside Tim on the bed, pulling gently at his shoulder to turn him back. Tim resisted.

“Babybird…?”

“Sleep in,” Tim declared emphatically. Jason huffed a laugh.

“Any other day and I’d say yes in a heartbeat - I’d _beg_ you to sleep in - but you gotta go see someone, Tim. Today. Now. Before this becomes a real problem.”

He groaned and turned his head into the pillow. “Noooooooo, don’ wnna g’ t’ alf’d.”

“What was that?”

Tim turned back and glared up at him balefully. “I won’t go t’ the manor. No Alfred.” He attempted to turn back into the pillow, but Jason grabbed onto both shoulders and pulled him upright.

“Look, I’m going to call Leslie, but if she’s not available, I don’t care what it takes - I’ll drag you out of this apartment if I have to - but you’re going to go see _someone_ ,” Jason told him grimly. “Heck, I’d even take you to the hospital if it were an option,” he muttered, standing up and picking up his phone again. He glanced down and smirked fondly - Tim was slowly listing over, hair standing up in every direction, eyelashes fluttering as struggled to keep his eyes open.

“Here. I’ll step out for a sec and call Leslie, and you work on getting dressed.” Jason stepped out into their living room and made the call.

Five minutes later he re-entered and chuckled fondly at the sight of Tim half-dressed, fully-asleep, and partially-draped across the bed. He must have fallen onto his back while trying to pull on his pants and then drifted off because he was sprawled out on his back, the sweatpants were pulled up just above his knees, and one hand still clutched the waistband tightly in his sleep.

“Okay, Timmers, I’ve got good news and I’ve got bad news,” Jason announced loudly.

On the bed Tim jerked awake then moaned. He didn’t make any motions to sit up or continue dressing, so Jason moved in, grabbing the waistband of the sweats with one hand and lifting Tim’s hips with the other while he dragged his pants up over his ass.

“The good news is that Leslie has time to see you today,” he told Tim brightly. He grumbled in reply, then yelped when Jason suddenly pulled him into sitting up by his wrists.

“Bad news is that she’s not available until one, and she told us to meet her at the manor. _After_ having Alfred take a look at you and get back to her with the preliminary results.”

“Nooooooooooooooooo,” Tim howled hoarsely as he stuffed him into a clean shirt. Jason turned for barely a second to grab a sweatshirt - no need for Timmy to catch a chill on top of everything else - but when he turned back Tim was flat on his back again, fingers clawing into the sheets. “Don’ wanna go. Too comfy,” he whined, breaking off to cough pathetically, chest hitching off the bed with each spasm.

“Yeah, I bought the mattress, so I know better than anyone how comfy it is, but we gotta go, gotta get you better,” Jason explained. He leaned down over him and began sliding one arm under his legs and the other under his back. Tim’s hand shot out with surprising speed and yanked on his shirt, pulling Jason off balance and crashing down onto the bed, almost crushing the smaller man as he fell.

“Tim! What the-”

“Come back. Sleep in. Warm,” Tim explained drowsily, pulling him close with startling strength. Jason laughed.

“Who was it that said that no matter how soft or warm the bed, you still have to get out-”

“No! Not the bed,” Tim croaked, cracking an eye open and staring at him pointedly. Jason’s brow crinkled in confusion and he breathed in and out for several counts before it finally hit him. He smiled and scooted in close to kiss Tim gently on the forehead.

“And here I was thinking you only liked me for my beds…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaaaand… then Jason pulled him out of the bed and dragged him to Alfred ;3   
> _“I’m flattered, Timbo, but we can snuggle together in the Cave medbay just as well as we can here.”_  
>  _“Noooooooooooooooooooo.”_
> 
> My DCU tumblr is [redrobinfection](http://redrobinfection.tumblr.com/). Like and reblog this work on tumblr [here](http://redrobinfection.tumblr.com/post/176043209791/18-sleeping-in). Thanks for reading!  
> 


	11. (21) Picnic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _"...it's a bummer that things go so fast..."_  
>  Title from Walk the Moon's [Jenny](https://youtu.be/910fPF-Qc7E).
> 
> Day 21 "Picnic"
> 
> This fill is a tiny bit of sequel to my JayTimWeek 2017 fic ["Temps Up Tim Down"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11601135) (it also vaguely references into my Day 5 ["Watermelon"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15735180/chapters/36585162) fill and my other JayTimWeek2017 fic ["Better Off Together"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11657982)), but it can also be read independently. Enjoy!

“Take two! Let’s try this again,” Jason called out as he strode across the roof of  Wayne Enterprises. Tim was already waiting on their favorite AC unit, cowl down, sitting next to a large, hard-sided cooler. Jason held up a little cooler bag and shot him a grin.

“I brought the slushies; you bring the water?”

“Sure did,” Tim replied, patting the cooler.

“Holy hell, Babybird, look at that thing! Did you really grapple up the side of the building with that monster?”

Tim snorted. “No way. I got it out of the Penthouse. I left the water and food in the fridge down there before patrol.”

“Oh jeez, why didn’t we think of that sooner!” Jason smacked a palm against his forehead.

"Good question. Alfred asked me the same thing,” Tim replied with a chagrined grin. They chuckled.

“Wait. You said food too so…”

“Alfred sent us some of his loaded oatmeal cookies, and, since you love it so much and it’s packed full of fluids, also some watermelon.”

“Yesssssss, Alfie for the win!” Jason trumpeted. “Looks like we got ourselves the makings of nice little rooftop picnic.”

Tim opened the cooler and began pulling out food while Jason pulled the sealed vacuum thermoses of slushie out his bag. They lapsed into comfortable silence as they sipped on the slushies, gulped down water, and nibbled on the cookies. They saved the watermelon for last. As Tim was pulling the plastic container and two forks out of the cooler, Jason asked him how his night was going.

“So have you been keepin’ cool, Babybird? Drinkin’ lotsa water?”

Tim nodded. “Yeah, I’ve been drinking a lot of water and sports drinks, and I’ve been stopping every hour to cool off-”

“Good,” Jason cut in, nodding in approval, “We don’t need to repeat last week’s near-brush with heat stroke.” The hellishly high temperatures had abated slightly since the week before, but the air was still brutally humid with little to no wind to speak of - the perfect conditions for armor and kevlar-clad vigilates to dehydrate and/or overheat themselves.

Tim glared, but went on. “ _Besides_ , Alfred has been in my ear all night, pestering me to take it easy.”

“As well he should! Goodness knows you wouldn’t take it easy otherwise.”

Tim sighed and offered the container of melon, waiting just long enough for Jason to spear a piece before stabbing his a piece for himself with just a bit too much force. “Yeah, well, I’m just glad he finally let me back out. Four days benched simply for overheating is a little excessive if you ask me.”

Jason swallowed his bite of watermelon and swatted him lightly with his fork. “Are you kidding me? Four days is the minimum he could have kept you benched. If it had been Leslie giving the orders, she would have insisted on a week. At least!” He reached out to spear another piece of watermelon, then turned his loaded fork on Tim and pointed accusingly. “And don’t you try to give me that ‘simply for overheating’ bullshit; you literally _passed out_. I don’t care if your core temp never hit the danger zone, you were pretty much teetering on the brink of heat stroke, man.”

Tim rolled his eyes and sighed. “Fine. I’ll let you guys have this one, but you’re one to talk, Mr. Gets-Hypothermia-Then-Goes-Out-The-Next-Night-And-Fucking-Falls-Into-The-Gotham-Harbor-And-Goes-Hypothermic- _Again_ ,” he accused, shooting Jason a cool glare.

He laughed nervously. “Yeah, well… that was a really stupid thing for me to do and I should make better decisions in the future,” he told Tim primly. Tim looked surprised, and maybe a little wary, at the uncharacteristic admission, but he nodded slowly. “I’ll do better if you will,” Jason promised.

“Fair enough.”

“Hey. I thought you didn’t like watermelon?” Jason asked, staring as Tim pulled another piece out of the container and sucked on it briefly before nibbling off a corner.

“I don’t, but it’s good tonight. Alfred has a good eye for watermelons. Not too dry, but not too juicy. Not too sweet, but not flavorless either. Not grainy at all. Perfectly firm,” Tim described thoughtfully as he finished off the piece. He reached for the last piece but Jason raced him to it, won, and then lifted his prize up teasingly.

“So it’s absolute perfection or none at all for you?” Jason asked, raising the piece to his mouth. Tim darted in at the very last second and kissed him just after the melon passed his lips. They wrestled briefly, bizarrely, over the piece until it dissolved into two pieces, one for each of them, and then broke apart laughing.

“Exactly. That’s why I’m dating you,” Tim bantered back.

Jason threw his head back and laughed harshly. “Hate to say it, Timbo, but I am a far cry from perfect.”

“Sure, none of us are 'perfect’. Neither are watermelons, but this watermelon is just right for me. No matter how messy” - he waved his juice-soaked, sticky hands and grinned - “or complicated things get, good times or bad, this” - he gestured between them - “is just right for me.”

Jason grinned back and leaned in. “Sounds about right to me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My DCU tumblr is [redrobinfection](http://redrobinfection.tumblr.com/). Like and reblog this work on tumblr [here](http://redrobinfection.tumblr.com/post/176139812363/21-picnic). Thanks for reading!  
> 


	12. (23) Rainy Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _"...it's a bummer that things go so fast..."_  
>  Title from Walk the Moon's [Jenny](https://youtu.be/910fPF-Qc7E).
> 
> Day 23 "Rainy Day"

_“No,” said the little prince, “I’m looking for friends. What does tamed mean?”_

_“It’s something that’s been too often neglected. It means, ‘to create ties'…”_

_“ 'To create ties’?”_

_“That’s right,” the fox said. “For me you’re only a little boy just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you have no need of me, either. For you I’m only a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, we’ll need each other. You’ll be the only boy in the world for me. I’ll be the only fox in the world for you…” [1]  
_

Tim sunk into the cushion of the window seat and let the words wash over him, his mind wandering as Jason’s voice coaxed the story out of yellowed, musty pages. He gazed out at the rain sheeting down from the steel-grey sky in shifting, incessant torrents, and let the noise of it wash over him as well, letting himself drift off to both steady, soothing streams of sound.

_“…So I’m rather bored. But if you tame me, my life will be filled with sunshine. I’ll know the sound of footsteps that will be different from all the rest. Other footsteps will send me back underground. Yours will call me out of my burrow like music. And then, look! You see the wheat fields over there? I don’t eat bread. For me wheat is of no use whatever. Wheat fields say nothing to me. Which is sad. But you have hair the color of gold. So it will be wonderful, once you’ve tamed me! The wheat, which is golden, will remind me of you. And I’ll love the sound of the wind in the wheat…” [1]  
_

Jason paused to turn the page and Tim hummed. The older man, sitting facing him on the other end of the seat, looked up inquisitively.

“Hmm?”

“I was just thinking,” Tim began softly, “ 'To create ties'…'a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes'…’wheat fields'…well…” He trailed off and wriggled his toes under the blanket Alfred had thrown over them, tickling Jason’s leg as he looked up to meet his gaze playfully. “What are our 'wheat fields’, I wonder?”

“Are you trying to insinuate that you’ve tamed me?” Jason teased, clutching a hand to his chest melodramatically and recoiling as if offended. Tim smiled.

“Well, you’ve tamed me, at the very least.”

Jason huffed a quiet laugh, eyes soft, then looked away, a fond grin tugging at the corners of his lips. Tim followed his distant gaze out the window - through the deluge, across soggy Manor lawns, and into the dark void of the forest beyond - and lost himself once again in swirling eddies and the hushed roar of the rain. This line of storms didn’t look like it would be letting up anytime soon; patrol would be a miserable sodden mess tonight.

Silence stretched between them, comfortable and warm, like the blanket they shared, and Tim relaxed into it, wrapping himself up and sinking into the feeling, languidly reveling in this rare moment of tranquility - rare in lives such as theirs.

“The sky,” Jason blurted out suddenly, turning back. Tim tilted his head in confusion.

“What?”

“You know how the sky gets sometimes?”

“Uhhh…”

Jason chuckled and looked down at his knuckles. He rubbed a thumb over the rough, calloused skin absentmindedly as he explained. “In mid to late summer, when the humidity is up but the clouds have cleared out for once, and you look straight up, usually right before dusk, sometimes at dawn, the sky turns this hazy, steely-purpley blue that is somehow deep and intense, but faded and hazy and ethereal at the same time…

"That is the color of your eyes,” Jason told him quietly. He looked up, meeting Tim’s wondering gaze, and nodded, as confirming it to himself. “Every time I see that now, and, heck, even when I don’t - every time I look up at the sky now, it reminds me of you.” He huffed an embarrassed laugh and shook his head. 

“I’ve never been much of a 'blue-skies-and-sunshine’ kind of guy, even back when I wore the short shorts and shitting sunshine was practically part of the job description” - Tim ugly snorted, slapping a hand over his nose and mouth, but not before Jason heard him and grinned - “Give me a dark stormy night any day of the week, but more and more these days I cherish each and every sunny day Gotham spares us, and I stay up past dawn more now than I’d like to admit, hoping to see that certain blue. Because it reminds me of you.”

They stared at each other for a long moment before Tim cleared his throat and looked away, heat rising to his cheeks. It was hard not to mirror Jason’s sappy, slightly teasing grin, but Tim took care to keep his expression serious as he considered his response.

“Hmmm, well, I guess… trees?”

Jason squinted and leaned forward. “Trees?”

Tim fought down a smile. “Yeah, you know the trunks. Every time I see a thick, strong trunk I’m reminded of your thighs-”

Jason burst out laughing, completely obliterating the quiet, contemplative mood they’d had up until then. “Tree trunks remind you of my legs?”

“So thick,” Tim teased, waggling his eyebrows suggestively. Jason howled.

When their mirth had died down, Jason stood and announced his intention to go and see what Alfred was cooking up for dinner. Tim smiled to himself. Jason liked to act as if he was only going down to pester Alfred and mooch the food, but Tim knew - and Jason knew that he knew - that that was his way of playing the good son while holding on to his bad boy image; he was deliberately throwing himself into Alfred’s path with the full intent of getting himself conscripted to help - and of course Alfred knew it too. They all knew, it but, just like a magic trick, no one would ever address the illusion. He’d never say it out loud, but Tim loved that hidden side of him.

He acknowledged and replied that he’d be down in a few minutes, then turned back to the window and pulled the blanket up over his chest and curled into the residual heat, hoping to savor the mood for just a few seconds longer.

As he stared out at the rain, his thoughts turned to the roof on the Gotham Cathedral and to the walls of the GU School of Architecture[2]. Both were covered in copper sheeting that had oxidized over time, taking on a patina that could look blue on some days and green on others - perfectly beautiful, unpredictable and organic. That train of thought led to thinking of the time they had once burned copper in high school chem class, to the resulting blue-green flame that had burned into his memory in the dark room, that surreal, electrifying light. 

The color of oxidized and oxidizing copper was not very far off from robin’s egg blue, he realized with a sense of irony, but, at the same time, one was so much heavier, weighed down by the years of wear it took to form, and the other more intense, from having been born of the heat and the violence of rapid change. 

Tim had a feeling he’d be turning to stare at the copper roofs around Gotham more often from now on. There was that one roof he always ran across on his patrol route, the color of it so bright, but so deep, and in the right light almost as vibrant as copper on fire. Sometimes dark, some times bright. Always intense. Just like _his_ eyes… 

“ _The wheat, which is golden, will remind me of you. And I’ll love the sound of the wind in the wheat_ …”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] All Italicized excerpts are from Antoine Saint-Exupéry’s (1900-1944) _Le Petit Prince_ , English translation by Richard Howard
> 
> [2] I based this off a real-world building; the [Penn State University School of Architecture.](https://www.google.com/search?q=penn+state+school+of+architecture&client=firefox-b-1&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiClIaGnLbcAhUSNd8KHVDzC6wQ_AUICygC&biw=1140&bih=609#imgrc=_)
> 
> My DCU tumblr is [redrobinfection](http://redrobinfection.tumblr.com/). Like and reblog this work on tumblr [here](http://redrobinfection.tumblr.com/post/176211385623/23-rainy-day). Thanks for reading!  
> 


	13. (28) Snow Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _"...it's a bummer that things go so fast..."_  
>  Title from Walk the Moon's [Jenny](https://youtu.be/910fPF-Qc7E).
> 
> Day 28 "Snow Day"

“Jas'n. C'n we take a snow day?”

“Uh. Tim, it’s the middle of July and eight o’ clock at night.”

“I know, I just…” Tim stumbled forward and faceplanted into Jason’s chest. Jason grunted at the the impact and blinked down at him uncertainly.

“Timbo, did you skip sleeping again this week?” he teased lightly, leaning back slightly so he could sneak one hand between his chest and Tim’s forehead.

“No, I… jus’ wanna snow day. Day in. Stay in,” he mumbled nonsensically.

“Tim, you’re burning up!” Jason exclaimed, grabbing the smaller man’s shoulders and peeling him away from his chest.

Tim groaned at the lost of contact. “Ngnnn. ‘Feel like shit.”

“Well, you didn’t look like shit five minutes ago…” Jason rubbed a thumb across Tim’s cheek and flinched away aghast at how much foundation rubbed off, revealing fever-reddened skin. “Holy shit, how much makeup are you wearing?! Did you go to work like this?”

“Mmmfgh. Yeah. Now I wan’ a snow day. It’s so coooold,” he whined deliriously, swaying perilously in Jason’s grip. Jason shot forward in alarm as Tim tilted away from him, quickly ducking down and taking pulling one of his arms over his shoulder.

“Okay, Babybird, we’ll take a snow day-”

“…so c-cold… snuggle…”

“Yeah, we’ll snuggle up together just as soon as we go see Alfred about some hot chocolate,” Jason reassured him. “Some very special ‘hot chocolate’-”

“Mmm?”

“Yep, Alfie will fix up us up with lots of blankets and snacks and antibiotics and a fuck ton of fluids,” Jason rambled cheerfully as he steered Tim towards the clock in the study.

“Soun’s good…n’ then…”

“And then what, Timbo?” he asked absently as he opened the clock and began their descent into the cave one step at a time. “ALFRED?!”

Tim flinched at the shout - “Shhhh, you’re fine, it’s all fine we just gotta make sure Alfie’s down there, right, Timmers?” - but they both breathed a tiny sigh of relief when they heard Alfred’s faint reply drift up the stairs.

“Sick Timmy incoming, Alfie!”

“Good Heavens, again?”

Jason snorted lightly then choked when Tim almost pulled himself out of his grasp.

“Mmgrhph. N’t sick. Cold.”

Jason rolled his eyes and pulled him close. “Okay, then stay close to me. I’ll keep you warm. We’re almost there.”

They took a few more steps in silence, then Tim mumbled, “Jay?”

“Timmy?”

“Jaaaaaaay?”

“Yeeeeees?”

“After Alfie…” Tim paused and looked up at him - later Jason would swear he’d seen a lucid spark of humor in Tim’s fever glazed eyes - “Do you wanna build a snowman?”

“Oh my fucking G-”

“Master Jason!”

Tim began giggling uncontrollably, still looking Jason straight in the eye, and it was at that point that he realized that Tim was both a) very aware that he was, in fact, very sick, and not simply cold, and b) not nearly as delirious as he was pretending to be.

“You little troll,” Jason growled, “I don’t care if you’re sick, if you start singing, I swear…”

Tim continued giggling throughout his entire examination and the consequent treatment, sporadically humming snatches of song until Jason swatted at him, proving, once and for all, that it takes more than a fever and chills to take the sass out of Tim Drake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My DCU tumblr is [redrobinfection](http://redrobinfection.tumblr.com/). Like and reblog this work on tumblr [here](http://redrobinfection.tumblr.com/post/176388976255/28-snow-day). Thanks for reading!  
> 


	14. (29) Date Night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _"...it's a bummer that things go so fast..."_  
>  Title from Walk the Moon's [Jenny](https://youtu.be/910fPF-Qc7E).
> 
> Day 29 "Date Night"
> 
> [ << Continued from Day 17 "S'mores"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15735180/chapters/36739935)

_Jason slapped his shoulder lightly. “Hey. I thought we went over this: none of that sexy stuff; this is a PG-rated, all fluff, bonding trip. No seducing me into sexual actvities with your well-affected sloppy cuteness,” he teased._

_“Kissing is hardly sex.”_

_“It is if we start tongue-fucking each other!”_

~*~

Tim let out an ugly snort before he contain it and Jason burst out laughing, which set him off laughing as well. “O-okay, okay, so… so b-bonding,” Tim choked out between laughs. “We hiked up here, we set up camp, started a fire, ate dinner, made s'mores… Now what? Do we sing campfire songs and cuddle? Or is cuddling too sexual? ‘Kumbaya’ sound good to you?”

Jason rolled his eyes. “Yes to cuddling - jeez, I think we can hug and sit together without it turning into a porno for the bears, ya know - but no to singing. We came out here work things out and grow closer, so that means we should, I dunno, talk or something.”

“About what?”

“About things we need to talk about, I guess,” Jason replied soberly, “The stuff we never get around to or the stuff we are afraid to talk about or-”

“So like… things we want to work on?”

“Yeah, or things that are bothering you, all the things tha-”

“A gun safe.”

Jason blinked and tilted his head quizzically. Tim’s expression had taken on a serious, contemplative cast. “If you’re going to sleep in my apartment - the real one, the one ‘Tim Wayne’ walks in and out of in broad daylight -more days than not and bring your guns over, then you need to help me pick out a gun safe for you to store them in,” Tim explained, meeting his gaze firmly. “It’s great that you’re storing the ammo away from the weapons and keeping the safeties on and all of that, but I need more if you’re going to keep guns at my place on a regular basis. At any of my places - apartment, safehouse, or bunker.”

Jason nodded. “Okay. I can do that.” Tim’s expression lightened and he nodded his appreciation. Jason took a moment to compose himself then blurted out,

“Date nights.”

“Date nights?”

“I love patrolling with Red Robin then crashing at your place afterwards on most nights, but that’s not 'dating’,” he informed Tim bluntly. “Eating dinner and chatting it up on a stakeout is not a 'date’; and fixing up each other’s wounds might be re-bonding flesh, but it’s not 'bonding’,” he explained, doing his utmost to keep his tone level.

He’d been sitting on these complaints for a long time, not wanting to seem too demanding or too needy, so it was tough not letting it come bursting out all at once. “I know you’re a busy man, and you do fantastic work, but sometimes I feel like you’re all 'go, go, go’ and there’s never really any time to take a break. Like there’s never any time for 'us’.”

Tim’s face crumpled in dismay. “Jason…”

“I’m not finished,” he said, holding up a hand. Tim waited, his hurt expression practically screaming concern and worry. “All of that was fine before, when we were just feelin’ this out, figuring things out between us, but I feel like we’re ready to go further than that. That’s why I asked for this trip, that’s why I wanted us to talk seriously about what we need from each other. So…yeah. Date nights,” he finished lamely, leaning back with a sigh.

“I… yeah. No. Definitely. We can do that,” Tim replied faintly, looking sick.

Jason frowned. “Are you sure? You don’t look all that keen on the idea…”

“No, I…” Tim stopped, closed his eyes and shook his head vigorously, swallowing convulsively. He opened his eyes and shot Jason a pained, empathetic look. “I’m just so sorry you felt that way. I had no idea. If I had known-”

“Hey. Tim. Man. Chill, okay?” Jason reached out and grasped his hand, squeezing gently. “Breathe. I’m not mad and, like I said, that was fine before. We were keepin’ casual and that’s fine. I just… moving forward I want more. That’s all,” he reassured him, lifting their hands and giving them a little shake as he smiled down at Tim gently. Tim relaxed only slightly and smiled back weakly, as if not entirely convinced yet. Jason huffed a laugh and pulled their hands into his lap.

“Besides, even if I was upset about this - and I’m not - we came out here to talk things out, right? It’s okay for us to get annoyed or be unhappy or want things as long as we communicate that to each other so we can work towards a better place. Right?”

Tim’s searching stare could have bored holes into the rock beneath them, but eventually he found whatever he was looking for behind Jason’s eyes and sagged into Jason’s side with a barely perceptible sigh. “Yeah. As long as we’re okay, we should get everything that might be eating at us out in the open. Work it out.” He squeezed Jason’s hand gently, as if looking for confirmation.

He took the cue and squeezed Tim’s hand firmly, knocking it against their legs while he tilted into him playfully. “Exactly. Sorry, if I scared you. I just get intense, you know?”

“Y-yeah,” he replied breathlessly, swinging their hands and shooting a sly grin up at Jason. “I get pretty intense sometimes too.”

“S'all good,” Jason replied, pressing a soft kiss into Tim’s hair. “As long as we’re on the same page, it’s all good.”

Tim nodded and then they lapsed into a restful silence, staring into the crackling flames of their campfire. Jason enjoyed the quiet moment; it was a comfortable, companionable silence between them, sharing each other’s warmth and that of the fire, and in the distance Jason could just make out coyote yipping and maybe the distant howls of wolves. After a few minutes Tim shifted.

“So… does this count as a date?” Tim asked, something about his tone making Jason draw back to get a good look at him. Tim had clearly recovered from the shock because he was wearing a shit-eating grin that he was trying to hid by turning his face toward the flames.

“Yes. Yes, it is,” Jason replied slowly, biting off each word carefully. “But this is a special kind of date. A date weekend! Don’t think this counts for the next three weeks or some shit like that!”

“So we’re gonna do one date night per week?”

“At least. We’ll start out once a week and adjust from there.”

Tim smiled up at him. “Sounds good. What about special date weekends? How often are we going to do these?”

“As often as I can drag you away from your precious duties, you crazy work-a-holic,” Jason replied blithely. “Let’s aim once every other month.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Tim replied, before turning back to the fire and yawning so widely Jason swore he heard his jaw crack.

“You know what else sounds like a plan? Sleeping. Let’s turn in, Timbo,” Jason said, standing with a stretch that popped several tendons and joints across his back, hips and knees. Ah, the perks of being a vigilante.

“But it’s only nine o’ clock!”

“Yeah, but it’s pitch black out here and you’ve been averaging four hours a night for the last week and a half. Time to go pay off your sleep debt,” Jason replied, grabbing Tim’s wrists and pulling the smaller man up.

Tim went with it, but let himself flop limply into Jason’s chest. He peered up at Jason from under his eyebrows. “You just want to get me into your sleeping bag, you horn dog.”

Jason laughed. “I’m the horn dog? You’re the one who keeps throwing yourself at me.”

Tim grinned sleepily. “Guilty. Okay. Let’s sleep, that way we’ll be fully rested when I make you teach the birds how to sing come sunrise.”

“Tim!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My DCU tumblr is [redrobinfection](http://redrobinfection.tumblr.com/). Like and reblog this work on tumblr [here](http://redrobinfection.tumblr.com/post/176426364831/29-date-night). Thanks for reading!  
> 


	15. (30) Summer Job

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _"...it's a bummer that things go so fast..."_  
>  Title from Walk the Moon's [Jenny](https://youtu.be/910fPF-Qc7E).
> 
> Day 30 "Summer Job"
> 
> [ << Continued from Day 6 "Food Truck"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15735180/chapters/36585339)

“Thanks again for helping me get this going, man.”

“No problem,” Tim responded easily, grinning up at Jason. “I’m really glad we made the truck a summers-only gig so we could hit up the busy tourist season, get the high school crew involved, and, best of all, so I could justify taking a few months sabbatical from WE to ‘cultivate our youth outreach program first hand’.”

“Yeah, I think this whole ‘summer job’ thing is a good approach, at least for now, and the Neon Knights kids have been great,” Jason replied as he began assembling the next few orders. “Hey, toss me a few more buns, please.”

Tim tilted the box towards himself and fished around with gloved hands. “Down to the last four, Jay.”

“Oh jeez,” Jason murmured, taking the buns from him. “The lunch rush really hit us hard today.” He was shaking his head as if chagrined, but Tim didn’t miss the over-the-moon grin on his face. He allowed himself his own small grin as he crouched down to pull the next box of buns from the cabinets under counter. Apparently running his own chili stand and having access to all the chili dogs he could ever want had been a cherished childhood dream of Jason’s, so Tim was glad he’d encouraged Jason to move forward on making that dream a reality. Jason deserved to have a few of his dreams come true now and again, and hopefully - no pun intended - this one wouldn’t blow up in his face like the last on had.

“No more boxes of buns up front,” Tim told him, closing the empty cabinet and standing up again.

“I’ll have one of the kids grab us more from back storage in a sec,” Jason replied absently. He huffed a little chuckle and glanced over at Tim. “I still can’t believe you talked me into naming this rig 'Red Hot Chili Dogs’.”

Tim laughed. “I’m just surprised you’re not doling out dogs while rockin’ the hood, just to go along with the theme. Imagine what it would do for business.”

Jason shot him a wry glance and slid the orders his way. “Yeah, we wouldn’t have to worry about a lunch rush anymore would we? Chili on two, chili-cheese plus jalapeños on the third.”

“Roger that.”

Jason turned as two of their teenaged employees came in from the back of the truck. “Nice. Go ahead and put one box of dogs in the fridge, but keep the other one out,” Jason directed, pointing to the little fridge beside him. “ _Sí, ponla en el refrigedor, Jorge._ Darnell, you can crack open that second box; I need five more dogs on the grill stat.”

“Sure thing, Boss.”

_“Y, Jorge, necesito dos cajas más.”_

_“¿De… qué?”_

_“Uy, pardón. De los bollos, por favor.”_

_“Estoy en eso.”_

Tim passed the completed orders over the counter, calling out the names on each, then turned and smiled up at Jason. “It’s gonna be a long afternoon.”

Jason nodded as he focused down at the dogs on the grill. “Yeah and it’s gonna be a long summer, too.”

“Good thing we splurged for AC,” Tim teased.

Jason grinned then leaned over to peck a quick kiss on Tim’s forehead. “Yeah, and good thing I’ve got you here to have my back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation - “Yes, put it in the refrigerator, Jorge.” / “And, Jorge, I need two more boxes.” / “Of… what?” / “Oof, sorry. Of buns, please.” / “On it.”
> 
> This is it for my JayTim Christmas in July fills! See everyone same time, same place next year, right…? ;3
> 
> My DCU tumblr is [redrobinfection](http://redrobinfection.tumblr.com/). Like and reblog this work on tumblr [here](http://redrobinfection.tumblr.com/post/176462361332/30-summer-job). Thanks for reading!  
> 


End file.
